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But the salient point (and the only reason I really care about this) is that if publishing decisions are driven by “expectations” that lead to people like me writing to a template or formula because it works...then that doesn’t actually seem like a good way to get the best work out, right?

In true writing forums fashion, let’s do an analogy! Food - Imagine that everybody in the world loves steak. Imagine it’s ninety-nine percent of dishes and always has been. Now imagine chicken is discovered. But, shit! All the grocery stores say no, their buyers want steak, expect steak, chicken is too weird, they worry. It won’t fit.

Now that’s a reasonable position. It’s also a tragically lame one. Do you really want to live in a word without fried chicken? And, just to be clear, I realize that there isn’t actually much anybody individually can do to change what’s in the grocery store. I accept everything. All I am asking for is an explanation, if possible, of why grocery stores (aka publishers) are so afraid to take on different kinds of meat when clearly if we look at it historically, originality in product, assuming the quality is there, does sell.

It's not that black and white. Considering the expectations of readers within a genre isn't the same thing as writing to a formula. What good genre writing does is take the tropes of the genre and look at them from a new perspective, or twist them in unique ways.

“Fools” said I, “You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows

Hear my words that I might teach you

Take my arms that I might reach you”

But my words like silent raindrops fell

And echoed in the wells of silence : Simon & Garfunkel

Those who enjoy stirring the chamber-pot should be required to lick the spoon.

Our job as writers is to make readers dream, to infiltrate their minds with our words and create a new reality; a reality not theirs, and not ours, but a new, unique combination of both.

Visit Amazon and the Kindle Store to check out Reflections in a Black Mirror, and Chase

It's not that black and white. Considering the expectations of readers within a genre isn't the same thing as writing to a formula. What good genre writing does is take the tropes of the genre and look at them from a new perspective, or twist them in unique ways.

I feel like “Take a genre, consider its tropes and tendencies, pick one or more, subvert them” is arguably a formula in itself.

Certainly I have to admit it felt like a formula when I was doing it and it got the work over the line.

“Formulaic” isn’t necessarily meant as a pejorative or an indictment of workmanship, more an omen of highly derivative content.

My personal favorite is “Night of the Naked Phantom” by Misty P. Ness.

Aww man, we don't wanna get into this. Raises way too many questions about how ghosts would go about gettin' jiggy with it. Also makes me wonder about which paranormal entities would actually be better between the sheets.

Would think ghosts would be kinda like having naughty dreams. I mean, they'd be great while they last, I guess, but... a little unfulfilling...

I wrote a horror story that had revolved around two shadows in love, but they're not a species that "does it" so much as they just meld together and touch consciousnesses, which would be a higher realm of intimacy but less physically pleasurable because shadows had very little by way of physical senses.

So far, my best bet are the empaths. I've written three of them so far (empathy worked differently in all three), and let's say they've got a lot of potential.

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